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Mike Dunlap Is Coaching at Arizona, but Not for Long

The focal point of Arizona’s run to the Round of 16 in the N.C.A.A. tournament has been the team’s curious coaching situation. It is so bizarre it almost sounds made up.

The Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson, who sat out last season for personal reasons, was supposed to return to the team this season, but he retired in October because of health concerns. The coach whom the 12th-seeded Wildcats wanted to take his place, albeit on an interim basis, was the associate head coach Mike Dunlap. But he refused.

“Basically, what they said at that time was that I wasn’t good enough to coach this team,” Dunlap said. “Let’s face it. That’s perfectly O.K. It’s a huge corporation, it has huge tradition. I didn’t take it personally. I understood.”

What was also understood by those around the program and those who know Dunlap was that he was the best, and perhaps most influential, coach on the staff. He won two national titles at Division II Metro State in Denver, served two years as an assistant under George Karl with the Denver Nuggets, and could be a candidate for a top job when the coaching carousel spins in the off-season.

As 12th-seeded Arizona moved into the regional semifinals on Friday against top-seeded Louisville, it is possible no coach has helped himself more in the past week than Dunlap. He is in the unusual position of having his first year at Arizona end as soon as the Wildcats lose.

When Dunlap rejected the head position last October, Arizona turned to Russ Pennell, who did radio commentary for rival Arizona State last season. But Dunlap has made his presence felt on the Wildcats’ sideline. Against No. 13 Cleveland State on Sunday in Miami, he wore a path walking to Pennell to make suggestions. He appeared to make many of the substitutions without asking.

And while he has played the role of diligent assistant coach, right down to the yellow legal pad he scribbles notes on, Dunlap seems to do more.

“He’s the associate head coach, and him and Coach Pennell work together on everything,” the junior forward Chase Budinger said. “They’ve both been in the situation. Coach Dunlap has done a great job keeping each player in check with discipline and focus-wise. He gets under our skin, but in the end we know that he cares about us.”

When Jordan Hill, another junior forward, picked up his fourth foul with about seven minutes to go against Cleveland State, Dunlap popped up. He suggested that Pennell gamble and leave him in the game. Hill came out but was almost immediately sent back in.

Dunlap is known as a master tactician. His practices at Metro State focused so much on footwork and fundamentals that his players would often go hour-long stretches without touching a ball. He counts John Wooden and Pete Newell as friends and mentors.

But in an environment in which teaching and coaching are often considered less important than collecting talent and catering to powerful summer coaches, it remains to be seen if Dunlap’s vast résumé will help him get a major Division I job.

His former athletic director at Metro State, Joan McDermott, said she had not received any calls about Dunlap this year. She said he was a finalist for the California job last year and got a long look from Stanford. She says she knows what she will tell any athletic director who calls.

“He’s absolutely one of the best coaches that I’ve ever been around,” she said. McDermott added: “I know as an athletic director at those top Division I schools that sometimes it may be tough to take a chance on a guy without the big name. But he’s worth the risk. If they hired him, the rest would be history.”

Karl was equally impressed, saying: “He’s the most intelligent person that has a love for the game of basketball that I’ve ever been around. His ability to analyze and articulate and figure out the problems of day-to-day basketball was incredible for me.”

Dunlap used part of a postgame interview with reporters on Sunday to clear up any negative perception about his refusing the interim job at Arizona. He was comfortable in the face of uncomfortable questions and brutally honest.

“I didn’t like it, of course I didn’t like it,” he said about not being offered the job full time. “But you can’t have it both ways. So from that standpoint, I’m excited about my future. I knew that regardless of how the national media perceived me, you know, a mercenary wanting more years and more money, that it never got to that point. It was a point of principle. I said, ‘Hey, I’m not going to take an interim job if you’re not going to make a full commitment to me.’ I know how I am. I make a full commitment.”

Dunlap is not looking backward. He is appreciative of the opportunity afforded to him at Arizona and looking forward to his next job, wherever it is.

“They said they wanted to make a corporate decision and get someone for 10 years,” Dunlap said. “Arizona typically doesn’t move their coaches in and out. I understood that. The president was very clear about that. I appreciate the fact that he spoke straight to me.”

That leaves Dunlap one loss from career uncertainty, yet another unusual situation in this most bizarre Arizona run.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B12 of the New York edition with the headline: Promising Coach in a Precarious Position. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe